Captain Burgh asked no questions until Malcolm had finished his meal. “I have plenty more food,” he said, “for we have brought three led horses well laden; but it were better that you eat no more at present, tis ill overloading a fasting stomach. My men will not be back from the pursuit for a couple of hours yet, for they will not draw rein so long as their horses can gallop, so excited are they over the tales of the horrible cruelties which have been perpetrated on all our men who have fallen into the hands of the peasants, so now you can tell me in full the tale of your adventures. I had no time to ask any questions of your sergeant, for we were called up and sent off five minutes after he arrived with the news that you with three men were beleaguered here by a party of peasants.”
Malcolm related the whole incidents which had befallen him since he had been suddenly felled and made captive by the women in the hut in the village. The Swede laughed over this part of the adventure.
“To think,” he said, “of you, a dashing captain of the Green Brigade, being made captive by a couple of old women. There is more than one gallant Scot, if reports be true, has fallen a captive to German maidens, but of another sort; to be taken prisoner and hid in a straw yard is too good.”
“It was no laughing matter, I can tell you,” Malcolm said, “though doubtless it will serve as a standing jest against me for a long time; however, I am so thankful I have got out of the scrape that those may laugh who will.”
When Malcolm finished his story Captain Burgh said: “You have managed marvellously well indeed, Graheme, and can well afford to put up with a little laughter anent that matter of the women, for in truth there are few who would with three men have held a post against four or five hundred, as you have done—ay, and fairly defeated them before I came on the scene. That thought of yours of laying the door upon the stairs was a masterly one, and you rarely met and defeated every device of the enemy.
“Now, if you will, I will mount this stronghold of yours with you, and see exactly how it stands, for I shall have to tell the tale a score of times at least when I get back to camp, and I can do it all the better after I have seen for myself the various features of the place.”
By the time they had mounted the top of the tower and Captain Burgh had fully satisfied himself as to the details of the defence the troopers began to return. Their horses were far too fatigued with the long ride from the camp and the subsequent pursuit to be able to travel farther. Fires were accordingly lit, rations distributed, and a halt ordered till the following morning, when, at daybreak, they returned to the Lech.
Two days later Malcolm and his men marched forward with a brigade which was advancing to reinforce the army under Gustavus, and reached Ingolstadt on the day when the king raised the siege, and accompanied him on his march to Munich.
Malcolm on rejoining was greeted with great pleasure by his comrades, who had made up their minds that he had in some way fallen a victim to the peasants. The noncommissioned officers and men of his party had been severely reprimanded for leaving the village without finding him. In their defence they declared that they had searched every house and shed, and, having found no sign of him, or of any struggle having taken place, they supposed that he must have returned alone. But their excuses were not held to be valid, the idea of Malcolm having left his men without orders being so preposterous that it was held it should never have been entertained for a moment by them.
“I shall never be anxious about you again,” Nigel Graheme said, when Malcolm finished the narrative of his adventures to the officers of his regiment as they sat round the campfire on the evening when he rejoined them. “This is the third or fourth time that I have given you up for dead. Whatever happens in the future, I shall refuse to believe the possibility of any harm having come to you, and shall be sure that sooner or later you will walk quietly into camp with a fresh batch of adventures to tell us. Whoever of us may be doomed to lay our bones in this German soil, it will not be you. Some good fairy has distinctly taken charge of you, and there is no saying what brilliant destiny may await you.”